Opera supports Google Gears in desktop and mobile browsers

Opera Software announced today it will support Gears in its desktop and mobile browsers. The inclusion of Gears in Opera's main browsing products supports Opera's vision of transforming the browser into a full platform for applications, regardless of device.

"Opera will have full support for Gears on mobile when they launch this year," said Charles Wiles, Product Manager for mobile web apps at Google. "Opera Mobile 9.5 will be a great example of a high-quality browser on a mobile platform that supports Gears. This marks the coming of age of the browser as the platform for application development on mobile devices."

"The forthcoming Opera Mobile 9.5 with Gears will usher in a new era for the Web on mobile devices," said Jon von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera. "Together, these products will create new ways to bring applications to life on mobile devices. Developers will be able to use this along with Opera Dragonfly to develop and debug compelling applications for any connected environment."

So this is good news for Opera fans, obviously. (There's some Opera 9.5 info here if you're not up on this product.)

What I don't get about Opera is that they're charging for full-featured mobile browser Opera Mobile. (I think Opera Mini is free, however.) I do believe their mobile browsers are probably quite a bit better than, say, Pocket IE. And certainly, there's a golden opportunity on mobile devices now, what with Mozilla being completely absent from this market. But why charge? Mozilla will get there eventually, and IE will shape up too. Opera should get this stuff out to as many users as possible, as quickly as possible.